


Less Than Five of a Kind

by ch1ps0h0y



Category: Hellsing, Magic Kaito
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, M/M, Personal Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-16 02:48:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11244771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ch1ps0h0y/pseuds/ch1ps0h0y
Summary: This was not his war to fight, but Kaito chose to fight it anyway.





	Less Than Five of a Kind

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to Val, who made me care far, far too much about young Walter before I watched his canon. Also grudgingly dedicated to Remo, who cackled at me after the ending of said canon tore my heart to shreds.
> 
> (Damn you both.)

_"The battlefield is no place for a civilian."_

Those scornful words echoed amidst thrumming engines, the stench of old leather, sweat, and fear. Huddled in a coat too broad for his shoulders, a flat cap over his short, brown hair, a young man sat with his head bowed over a deck of cards. His fingers were slender and uncalloused, nimble in their handling of the deck and its myriad, shifting forms. Three cards were coaxed to the top of the pile in succession then slipped back into the fold without a second thought, their faces quickly lost amongst flickering numbers.

The carrier plane was a hulking metal beast, quite unlike the sleek aircraft people would ride fifty, sixty years in the future. It was currently slicing through the air above south-east Asia, where tired, desperate lines of Japanese resistance continued to hold out against Allied forces. Scarcely an ocean between here and his country of birth and yet the young man felt like it was an entire world away. They were his people but they were also not. Many - far too many - would perish in the days to come and he could not (dare not) prevent it.

Sometimes you had to let people die for the future that would come.

Snapping the deck together, he cut the fifty-two cards into quarters. The cargo hold had two rows of seats, meant to hold men waiting to be dropped into the midst of battle. Right now, however, he was the only passenger.

He wasn't a soldier. And yet here he was.

_"Who is this?"_

His head snapped up. Plush carpet, a china vase, oil paintings on mahogany walls, and all the trappings of the bourgeois stuffed into one small waiting room lit by a cheerful hearth. The seats were leather - real leather - and the towel which weighed upon his shoulders soaking the last of the London rain, he was willing to bet, was pure wool.

At the door, a man: they were rugged, barely out of their twenties, several disobedient strands of blond, well-oiled hair curling back like devil's horns over an arrogant pair of blue eyes. He categorised these features without a second thought, making note of trickier features like wrinkles and laugh lines. European faces aged faster.

The man watched him coolly, as much at home in their power and status as they were in their bespoke Oxfords. Then their gaze shifted five degrees to the left, addressing a young man pouring tea. "Are we adopting strays now, Walter?"

'Walter' had straightened and bowed to the other man upon their entrance. Yet the butler's tone was anything but respectful now as he replied to his supposed master. "As much as _you_ are in the habit of adopting whores."

Walter's fingers twitched. A metallic whisper followed, and then a wooden panel tore itself from the wall. Feminine shrieks sounded from behind it.

The other man spluttered, making excuses and pathetic, flustered attempts to explain the women closeted in his study. Walter's effeminate features split into an irritatingly smug smile. That smile grew warmer after his master stormed out ("By Queen and country, Walter, I deserve some fun every now and then!") with the women and Walter turned to the one he had been fussing over.

"Don't worry," the butler said. "He'll let you stay. I'll make sure of it, even if it's only as one of the cleaning staff."

"Earning my keep, just like the other place?" he joked shakily. Walter laughed, reached out and brushed his cheek.

"Just like the other place." Then more softly: "Welcome to Hellsing, Kaito."

The plane jolted, and so did he. Jolted him out of a memory from months past into the rattling present. They were descending.

"Knave," Kaito muttered, smoothing his thumb over a blue-backed card. A crackling voice from the cockpit spoke.

"Two minutes to landing."

The buckle and belt holding the magician to his seat slithered to the floor. His deck of cards was stowed in one of many pockets. Grasping one of the straps above, he pulled himself up unsteadily and eased out the cold ache in his joints.

Kaito miraculously kept his balance through the landing, although he earned himself a painful bruise to the shoulder at touchdown. Cursing under his breath, he staggered forward and grasped the cargo door handle, twisted it, and then threw his weight against the thick panel.

With a groan, the portal opened. Barely enough moonlight was present to identify the wreck of a spot they had landed in. Kaito stepped back quickly to avoid the filaments which whisked past his cheek and fastened on a strut somewhere above. Moments later, Walter flew in.

Kaito smothered a gasp. Blood. From head to toe, cheek to jowl, splashes of dark, drying blood saturated Walter's normally immaculate dress. Kaito could see rips, holes where wounds gaped. And then there were the butler's eyes - cold, flint grey stones set in an even harder face.

The wires creaked when Walter registered Kaito's presence. A flash of something unreadable, fingers curling into a fist, then the butler called the steel back to his hand. Kaito felt one caress his jaw on the way past as Walter reached for his face.

"I told you not to come," Walter said quietly in French: the only language they shared. A year on, the younger man had taken to tying his lengthening hair at the nape. Hair that was thankfully too dark for Kaito to tell whether or not it was also crusted in blood.

Kaito squared his shoulders. He kept his eyes focused on Walter's face rather than the thin, bleeding scar at his throat. Ignored it just like the faint disapproval he could hear and the whiff of smoke from the battlefield. "What happened? Did you succeed?"

"Of course," Walter said dismissively, lips curving into a smirk. "Were you worried about me?"

Kaito thought back to the early mornings they spent together in his room. Quiet, desperate sessions of slow lovemaking, stolen whenever Walter had a moment in Hellsing's ongoing war against vampirekind. He had always worried during them - every kiss was a reminder of how he had taken away the only meaningful protection Hellsing's strongest fighter could have against the undead. The fear of it twisted in his gut whenever a shadow loomed.

_"So this is where the Angel of Death goes to rest his wings."_

It was a late night - Hellsing only worked late nights - in the mansion, a rare period of quiet where the household sat still. No shouts down the halls, no thud-thud-thud of boots on the grounds or the wild chop of rotor blades on the roof. Just blessed silence. Kaito was startled from his sleep to find the bed half-empty, warmth quickly fading from the sheets.

At the foot of his bed, a black silhouette with glowing red eyes.

Kaito scrambled upright, gasping out, "A-Alucard..."

A sliver of white cut the silhouette roughly where he imagined the Undead King's face would be. The red eyes leaned closer.

"I thought I smelt something rotten about Walter lately. He's found his Eve." Kaito backed up against the headboard as the vampire thrust their face into his, the putrid stench of old blood wafting out with every spoken word. Kaito tried to breathe through his mouth as those glowing eyes examined him. "And a Jap boy too, if I'm not mistaken."

"I'm French!" he insisted. He and Walter had agreed on this after escaping Warsaw.

Alucard's fanged smile widened. "I've sampled the French. You have only half their gall."

The magician whipped out the card gun underneath his pillow and fired three silver-edged cards into the vampire's chest. They did little more than stick there and smoke, and smoke pitifully at that.

Alucard laughed at him and retreated. Kaito did not try to wonder how the vampire had managed to loom over him from the other end of the bed. "See?" he said, voice darkly amused as he faded through the wall. The cards tumbled to the floor. "Only half."

Walter's kiss shook him back into the present. A light brush between their lips, a hand smearing crimson across his cheek. Kaito sighed into it, allowing the warmth of contact between them to blossom. When their eyes next met, the butler's hard edges had softened.

"No, I wasn't worried," he lied, tasting the bitterness of it on his tongue.

Walter's thumb pressed into his jaw. He could read the falsehood in Kaito's face but, as the magician hoped, he misread the lie. "I just need to wash these wounds and I'll be right as rain," Walter said. He was cheerful, a ghost of his unfettered self. "That vampire bastard should be along shortly."

Kaito nodded. Walter stepped past him towards the cockpit, voice raised to greet their pilot. Lies, he thought, watching Walter's blood-soaked back vanish. It was a miracle the butler still stood.

The hairs on his neck rose. Though he heard nothing, saw nothing, felt nothing, his gut plunged into ice-cold waters and nearly froze his heart. Taking a deep breath, he turned.

"Welcome back," he said evenly. The vampire was in the guise of a young girl clad in writhing void. He stank less of blood than Walter did. Unsurprising - he had probably consumed it all.

Alucard bared his teeth. The deep voice which spoke was at odds with his form. "Why are you here, Jap?"

Kaito tossed something small at the vampire's face. It was snatched from the air. "Show that to Sir Arthur when we get back. Keep my name out of it."

Hidden behind dark tresses, Alucard's expression was unreadable. His fist clenched around the thing; the magician was shot a leer. "Interesting. I didn't figure you for a wild card."

Kaito stared back flatly. "One more thing." He stepped forward, placing himself squarely in the vampire's personal bubble (not that Alucard had one to begin with). Hardening his expression, steeling his frightened heart, he hissed.

"If you leave Walter to fend for himself again, I'll kill you myself."

_"Walter!"_

It wasn't the first time Walter had returned from a mission looking like the living dead. Kaito's only consolation was that the actual living dead did not smile and did not attempt to joke about the situation they were in. And they certainly didn't return his hug with as much warmth as Walter did despite the butler's injuries.

"What _happened_?" Kaito pulled back, sinking on to the butler's bed. His hands felt down the other boy's chest, arms, back up to the face. It felt like the taut bandages were all that were holding Walter together.

"Bastard left me on my own again." Kaito felt a hand patting at his hair, trying to soothe his panic away. "Left me in front of a platoon of Germans to chase after the damned vampire. Nothing I couldn't handle."

"Again." His hands curled into fists. Though his voice remained even, anger surged into his heart. How dare he, Kaito snarled to himself. They only had one life, one chance in this world. Vampire or human: one opportunity to leave something of themselves behind.

Walter touched his cheek. "What did I say about that face?" he said sternly. Kaito rearranged his expression into a smile but Walter pinched his cheek. "No, not that one either."

Dropping all pretence, Kaito snapped, "What do you expect? You're _hurt_ because he--!"

A finger on his lips silenced him. A hand on the back of his neck pulled him down for a kiss. Fingers ran along the short hairs at his nape, rubbing a comforting back-and-forth over skin. At the end of it, these low words: "Ghouls are nothing. Men are even less. I promised that I wouldn't let anyone else's teeth near my neck, didn't I?"

Kaito's gaze shuttered, lips thinning. The lack of belief was written clear upon his face. Walter nudged his chin with a crooked finger and said firmly, "We'll discuss this later. When I'm not wrapped up like an Egyptian mummy. You should leave before Arthur comes in and sees you hovering over me."

...Right. The Protestant Knights was a religious order, in a decade where religion as much governed society as politics did. Their relationship would draw as much condemnation as his ethnicity in this climate. Kaito covered Walter's hand, squeezing it. Then he stood and made his way out.

In the corridor, he leant against the door after it had clicked shut and bowed his head. If he were stronger, he could support Walter himself. If he could carry a real gun, if he could bring himself to shoot at least a ghoul, Walter wouldn't have to put up with that unreliable asshole as a partner.

'If'...

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. They never did resolve what happened in Warsaw, did they?

Coming to a decision, he pushed himself away from the door, striding down the corridor back to his room.

 

As the rotors of the plane whirred into motion once more, Alucard threw back his head and laughed. The door slammed shut and locked of its own accord; the floor tilted. Kaito stumbled back, grabbing hold of a strap again, yet the vampire stood with perfect poise in the middle of the small cargo hold as they ascended. Once gravity had settled, Alucard flashed the magician a shark-like grin. None of the words he uttered were audible to Kaito's ears but he could read lips well enough.

Sometimes you had to let people die for the future that would come.

**Author's Note:**

> 'Five of a kind' - a hand in poker only possible if the wild card (Joker) is in play. It is the only hand higher than a Royal Flush.


End file.
